Meraki
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "She wants that. The sweetness of settling next to him, words and sounds and satisfaction rolling over them both. The quiet pleasure of feeding him. Of making this her place, too. Their place." A story of indeterminate length about nothing at all. Set some time not too long after "Murder, He Wrote" (5 x 04)
1. Chapter 1

Title: Meraki

WC: ~1000 this chapter

Rating: T

Summary: "She wants that. The sweetness of settling next to him, words and sounds and satisfaction rolling over them both. The quiet pleasure of feeding him. Of making this her place, too. Their place." A story of indeterminate length about nothing at all. Set some time not too long after "Murder, He Wrote" (5 x 04)

* * *

It's raining. The house—even this massive, hulking thing—is wrapped entirely in delicious gloom. The wind howls, and every once in a while the rain taps mournfully at the wide windows. It's wonderful. Perfect. Exactly what she wants for this.

She sends him away. Chases him out of the kitchen. His _own_ kitchen, he points out, then regrets it. Looks up quickly to apologize. She laughs, though. It is. It's _his_ kitchen, so far anyway. She grins and shoos him away. Tells him to go _do _something.

"Like what?" he asks grumpily from the doorway. "Check the pool for dead guys?"

"If there are dead guys in the pool, deal with it, and don't bother me. I'm cooking."

She keeps her focus on the cutting board in front of her. On the balance of a good knife in her hand and the satisfaction of motion. The clean slice of the blade and the _tok _of symmetrical pieces coming to rest on the wood. Precision and repetition. Everything bending to her will, just so.

Not quite _everything._

She pretends not to notice him creeping up on her. She hums to herself and keeps her eyes on her work. Lets the anticipation build. Her lips part and her breath catches as his arms slide around her waist. As he sweeps the hair from her neck and strings kisses from shoulder to ear. She lets him feel what he does to her. She lets herself feel it, just for now.

"You're cooking." She can hear the grin. Feel it shivering over her skin. "You're cooking for me."

"Not if you don't go." But she lets the knife settle on the board. She lets her hands still and her body sink against his. She revels in the perfect fit. "Right now, Castle."

"I'm going. Right now," he murmurs.

He's not. He doesn't. It's really no wonder. Her tone isn't exactly commanding, and the way her head tips willingly to the side is a mixed message at best.

She doesn't exactly want him to go. She'd love to have him here. Sitting and keeping her company. Telling stories and topping off her wine glass. Entertaining her.

But that's a fantasy. He can't sit still. He can't just leave her to this. He wants to help. He wants to show her where things are and tell the story of every single thing he comes across. The whole story before he can hand the damned thing over or get to what she was actually looking for.

He wants to hinder because the thrill of this hasn't worn off yet. The fact that he can derail just about any plan of hers with a touch or a well chosen word. By brushing by and leaving her with the scent of him. Everything about him calls to her, and the thrill off that might never wear off.

He wants to hinder, and part of her wants that, too. Right now. With every tug of his teeth at her skin. Every sweep of his fingers over her belly where the knotted tails of her shirt don't quite meet the low waist of her jean shorts. With every passing second, more and more of her defects to Team Hinder.

But another kind of desire wins out. The mellow scent of roasting garlic. The neat, bright piles, orange and green and red and gold. The things she has to show for the work of her hands. The care she wants to take with all of this.

The table and candles and music. The stuff he likes. The stuff she teases him about, even though it's growing on her. Even though she likes it a little more every time she catches him singing under his breath. She wants the exact moment when the speakers pop and his face lights up. The spark of recognition. Delight in sharing something he loves with her.

Timing things so they can watch the stars come out over the water, once the storm passes. So they can shiver at the lightning and count down to thunder if it doesn't.

Anticipation.

She wants that. The sweetness of settling next to him, words and sounds and satisfaction rolling over them both. The quiet pleasure of feeding him. Of making this her place, too. Their place.

"Castle!" She twists in his arms.

"What?" He blinks at her, his tone equal measures of surprise and calculated innocence. "I'm going!"

His head dips, bound for the flush of sunburn just between her collar bones, but she arches away from him. She gropes behind her. Her fingers close around a handle and she swiftly brings it up between them. Whatever "it" is. She was going for the paring knife, but this is one of fifty gadgets he must have pulled out and explained in painstaking detail before she forbid him from "helping." From talking. From _being _here unless he could behave. Which he obviously can't.

"I _said _I was going, Beckett." He blinks down at the thing as she brandishes it. "No need to . . . flavor inject me to death?"

She looks from him to the strange, wide-bore syringe. "That sounds . . . really dirty."

"You think everything sounds dirty. I love that about you."

He lowers his voice to a whisper of gravel and nips at her neck again. That's _not _helping. Not that she concedes that she thinks everything sounds dirty. She's not conceding anything. She's _cooking_. She yanks the thought uppermost in her mind and finally succeeds in shoving him away.

"_Out_, Castle." She turns back to the counter.

He advances again, but she's taken up the santoku knife. With a practiced flick of her wrist and a little more force than necessary, she brings it down on the board with a loud _thwock_.

"Out," he mutters, backpedaling. Grinning and tempting and trying hard to hinder even though he really is going now. "_Out.__"_

* * *

Meraki — (Greek.)_ Doing something with soul, creativity, or love — when you put "something of yourself" into what you're doing, whatever it may be. _


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Meraki

WC: ~1400 this chapter, 2400 so far

Rating: T

Summary: "She wants that. The sweetness of settling next to him, words and sounds and satisfaction rolling over them both. The quiet pleasure of feeding him. Of making this her place, too. Their place." A story of indeterminate length about nothing at all. Set some time not too long after "Murder, He Wrote" (5 x 04)

* * *

She chases him out into the rain. Well. She chases him _out. _The rain is his idea. A door and the howling wind between them, because anything else is too tempting.

No matter how many rooms away he goes, the smells from the kitchen are incredible, and the music she makes calls to him. Bare feet pattering and the percussion of the knife. The bright hiss of things landing in hot oil. Actual snatches of melody floating above the ring of her glass as she sets it decisively on the counter. Actual melody, because she sings. She mutters to herself and laughs out loud as she moves efficiently from there to here, and she _sings._

_She__'__s _too tempting,

It's fun to bother her. There's nothing new about that, except that everything feels new. Four months into this—four _years _and four months—every single thing about being with her feels new. And old. Comfortable. They know each other inside and out, and still— every day—he uncovers some new fact or favorite or thing that goes bump in the night for her. Something she loves and he had no idea.

It's magnified here. Away from the city where she's so different—where _they__'__re _so different—that it's like another sun in another sky. Here, she shoves her hands deep in her pockets and saunters. She floats on her back and twists in the water. She cuts through it with clean, graceful strokes and splashes like a little girl. She turns up a palm and reaches for his. She says _walk with me _and they ramble together along the beach. She leaves her watch behind.

She's enjoying herself. Wholeheartedly. She turns the tables and bothers him.

She snoops and rifles through things. She clambers up on the couch with him or into the hammock, all warm, bare, salt-smelling skin. She plucks books and magazines and newspapers from his hand and tosses them away.

She closes his fingers around things she's found and demands their stories. Shells and beach glass and tacky souvenirs. A solar-powered mason jar that glows with softly shifting colored lights and a dusty collection of hideous little figurines Alexis was obsessed with a hundred years ago.

She cuts him off and makes up her own versions when she thinks his are boring. She pulls off his sunglasses and gives him her interrogation stare when she thinks he's exaggerating. She seeks him out. She _demands _and gets her way.

She bothers him all the time here. He'd like to bother her now.

He'd like to be with her, rocking the tall stool back and back because she bites her lip and worries he's going to fall, whether she'd ever say that or not. He'd like to distract her with chatter and kisses while he palms the remote from the counter and messes with the playlist she has going. He'd like to dart away with it and make her chase, swatting him with a tea towel and threatening him with unidentified kitchen gadgets as they race through room after room.

He'd like to let her catch him. Take his punishment up against the French doors. He'd like to kiss her to the satisfying reverberation of things clattering to the floor. Whatever's in her hands. Whatever's in his.

He'd like all of that, and it's tempting.

It's _tempting_, but this is, too. Her. Today. This time.

It's enthralling, the way she's . . . installing herself. Marks on the cutting boards and fussy stacks utensils set just so in different drawers. Her breath fogging the copper bottom of a hanging pot and the decisive sweep of her forearm, wiping away half-imaginary smudges and leaving the memory of the way she grins at her own reflection in it.

It's tempting enough to make him wait. To leave her be and know she's left her mark. That a hundred signs of her will be here the next time and the next time and the next.

It's tempting enough to have him out here, breathing deep. Holding on tight to the porch railing to anchor himself and lifting his chin to the rain. It's tempting enough for the moment to keep his back to the house. To give her time and space and now. To let this place fill up with light and scent and her.

But the door opens just then. The clatter of casters and a mournful sigh as outside and in meet.

"You're soaked!"

Her words are all but swallowed up by the storm. By the sea and the swollen sky.

He turns to her, laughing. He _is _soaked.

She's standing in the doorway, one annoyed hand braced inside as the wind rushes to her and gathers up her hair. Light pours out of the kitchen behind her and he has to have her.

Her eyes go wide, but his intention registers a second too late. His name is a broken off syllable as he tugs her out into the storm. As he spins her against the side of the house and covers her body with his.

"You're soaked," she says again, breathless this time and kissing him.

"Soaked," he echoes as he sips raindrops from the tip of her chin.

He is. She is. She's shivering with it and he means to take her inside. He means to dash through the house with her, dripping and ducking away as she scolds. He means to peel away the rain dark fabric from her stippled skin and wrap her around and around with a huge, sinfully soft towel.

He means to, but her head lolls against the wall and she's kissing him like it's been a thousand years since the last time. The scent of rain and cedar winds around them. Her palms slide between the buttons of his shirt and she gasps like the warmth of his skin burns her.

"No."

He hears it. Faint and nonsensical. Vaguely annoying.

"Yes," he says crossly. But he's the one against the house now and she's far away. A rain-slicked arm and a long, long fingertip away.

"Dinner," she says firmly. Too firmly.

She's wavering. Vulnerable. His hand snakes out. He tugs the tails of her shirt. Draws her in and unknots them along the way. He slides his fingers up and over her belly. "Order in. Later."

"Castle . . ."

It's testy, but he has her. He knows he has her. She's coiled against him and she can't stop tasting the rain on his skin. She slides kisses and grazes him with her teeth and her tongue peeks out along the way. He has her, but there's a regretful little sigh the wind doesn't quite steal away.

He breathes deep. He lifts his chin to the rain again and catches her fingers in his. She wants this. He does, too.

He sweeps their arms high over her head and twirls her into his body and out again. Her eyes open wide. She's soaked and dizzy and looks thoroughly kissed. She's tempting in too many ways.

"Ok," he says. He spins her again. Across the porch to the open doorway this time. "Dinner."

The floor's a wreck. Leaves and sand and _wet_ blown almost all the way to the counter. He tries to herd her past it. Says it's his fault and he'll take care of it, but she digs in her heels, literally.

"My kitchen," she whirls toward him and doesn't quite quaver. "Tonight. My kitchen. You. Go shower. Dress for dinner."

"_Dress?_" He sounds appalled. He doesn't mean it. Not entirely, but he was picturing bathrobes. Compromising on store-bought whatever needs making right now and warming her up in the shower. Talking her into that at least.

"Dress," she says, though, and she _does_ quaver this time. Her fingers fly to scrape her sopping hair back from her forehead. Her cheeks. She looks at her toes. Over her shoulder. "Yeah."

He sees then. The silverware neatly bundled in raw silk napkins. Candles like tall, slim soldiers standing by. A bright bowl of flowers he doesn't recognize. He sees it all. Care and a pretty table. Company plates and her hair pinned up.

"Dress," he says. "Dressing. I'm going. Dressing, but don't you . . . you're . . .?" He trails off. Feels ungrateful. Clumsy.

But she smiles and shakes her head. She lights up. "No. You go. I only need a few minutes."

"Going."

He says, and unlikely as it seems, he is. He's going.


End file.
